The Voyage of the Unquiet Ice (16 page)

On either side of the structure, curved stairways ascended to the high deck, and halfway up they reached a landing that ran across the castle's front, overlooking the main deck below – the Captain's Walk it was called. A set of tall doors opened inwards from the landing, and it was to this entrance that Dow reported, and was then ushered through by the marines on duty.

He found himself in a short passage agleam with polished wood and brass. Narrow doors opened to the left and right, one leading to the captain's suite, the other to the first officer's, though Dow had never visited either. But at the end of the passage, beyond an internal stairway that came climbing up, were double doors through which he had passed once before. He knocked on them now, and then – for the first time since that night long ago in Stone Port – stepped into the
Chloe's
Great Cabin.

‘Mr Amber,' said Commander Fidel. ‘Welcome.'

It was darker than Dow remembered, for there were no banquet lights blazing, and it felt much larger, too, for there was no banquet crowd. Instead there was a great, shadowy emptiness. The stern windows were shuttered against the cold, and the brightest illumination came from three lamps that hung over a long table positioned in the centre of the room. Around the table were arranged perhaps twenty empty chairs, and its surface was littered with many maps and charts, some rolled, some unrolled. More chairs, and desks, lurked in the room's corners, and the walls bore banks of shelving that were laden with books and scrolls, all secured behind netting.

Fidel stood over by the shuttered windows, next to a desk cluttered with what seemed to be scientific equipment. ‘Come along, lad. We've only a few minutes before the others arrive. I want you to see this.'

Dow went, but hesitated when movement caught his eye from a dim corner. A single lamp burned there, and within its glow the page of a book was being turned. A face glanced up, dark eyes regarding him for a moment without expression, then lowered again to the page.

‘Don't mind Nell,' said Fidel cheerfully, ‘she's always in here with her head in some book or other.'

The scapegoat was bent over a bound volume set on a small table, a pen in her hand poised to write upon a sheet of paper. Dow had not seen her since their visit to the
Twelfth Kingdom,
and was unsettled to happen upon her now, here in her own territory. So – she could read and write, like an officer. Somehow, that only made Dow feel more awkward and out of place.

But Fidel beckoned again, and so Dow moved to the desk. Positioned upon it were two glass jars filled with water. One sat upon a metal tripod, suspended over the flame of a small lamp, its contents swirling slowly. The other stood beside a small wooden chest.

‘I've arranged a demonstration,' announced the first officer. ‘You will not, of course, have had the luxury of a proper education, but – for reasons you'll soon understand – there are basic facts you must now learn. For we venture shortly to the far north, where the very laws of nature are different. To the Unquiet Ice, as we call it. Do you know of the name?'

Dow nodded, though it was a title only of far-off dread and rumour to New Islanders, banned as they were from sailing abroad.

‘And do you know why the name is given?'

‘No, Excellency.'

‘Consider then, Mr Amber. The jars you see before you hold ordinary sea water, plucked last night from the harbour. The water above the flame has been kept heated since then. Place a finger in it, if you will.'

Dow hesitated – aware, from the corner of his eye, that Nell had looked up from her book and was watching expectantly. Was this a trick of some kind? But Fidel only nodded kindly, and so he reached a finger in – and then drew it back, surprised. The water was warm, but also—

‘It's thick,' he said.

Fidel nodded. ‘Aye – thick, and heavy, and clinging. So seawater will always become, once it has been held for long enough at a high enough temperature – somewhat higher, take note, than the oceans ever become about any of the Four Isles. And note also that I speak of seawater alone, for fresh water never displays these properties, no matter how long it's heated.'

Dow dipped his finger into the strange water again. It was bizarre; it felt like mud to the touch, but it was clear.

‘Why does this happen?' Fidel asked. ‘Well, think a moment, Mr Amber. What is the difference between seawater and freshwater?'

‘Salt,' Dow said.

‘Aye – but you could add all the salt you wanted to freshwater, and heat it, but it would not thicken like this. What else?'

Dow thought, and then had it. ‘Nicre!'

The commander smiled. ‘Nicre indeed. You know of it, no doubt, as the glass-like sheath that forms on hulls. But do you know what causes that sheath? Do you know what nicre actually is?'

Dow strained his memory, recalling what Boiler Swan had told him one night, long ago in the Stromner inn, as unlikely as it had sounded. ‘Tiny things in the water? Too tiny to even see?'

Fidel was impressed. ‘Perhaps learning is more advanced on New Island than I thought. That's truly what nicre is – or at least, our scholars believe it to be so, for they have glimpsed, through special lenses that magnify greatly, strange and tiny organisms that live in seawater but not in fresh. When these creatures encounter wood, they cling to it in their millions, thus forming the hard and slippery layer that coats and preserves all ships' hulls. A wonderful boon it is too. But be warned – nicre does more than that. Far more.

‘For one – as you see in this jar – the organisms thrive in warm water. Indeed, they multiply so vastly that warm water teems with them. It remains transparent to the unaided eye, but the warmer it gets, the more choked it becomes, until it is like syrup. And as in this jar, so in the ocean. It is this effect indeed that helps create the Barrier Doldrums. For there, under the blazing tropic sun, the sea becomes far warmer than we ever know it in these cooler latitudes, and hence so thick with nicre that a ship can scarcely move forward – even with wind to fill its sails.

‘But there never is any wind. Why that should be, our scholars do not know; whether it's because of the stagnant, mudlike sea, or some other effect of the weather, none can say. But the doldrums are a horrible place. No wave ever rises and no currents flow, and the ocean is near to dead, for very few fish can live in water so dense. There are only slimes and algae and crawling insects … and other horrid things of which I will not speak.'

Dow lifted a questioning eyebrow. It sounded dreadful no doubt – but they were not sailing to the doldrums.

Fidel nodded. ‘Yes. What is all this to us, you ask? Well, lesson number two. Nicre not only alters the nature of warm water. It affects very cold water too.' He lifted the lid on the small chest. ‘Behold.'

The chest was metal lined and floored with sawdust, and it held a large block of gleaming white ice.

‘This comes to us from frozen lakes in the mountain ranges to the north of here,' said Fidel, taking up a small sharp pick. ‘Traders carve it out whole and pack it and carry it down to sell in the towns and cities. We've taken a load on board just today, so that we might preserve fresh foods for the early part of our voyage. I have commandeered this block to show you exactly what we face in the Unquiet Ice. Watch closely now.'

He chipped away at the ice until he freed a chunk about the size of a fist, which he then dropped into the second jar of water.

Dow leant forward. The chunk of ice floated mostly submerged, with just a jagged protrusion rising above the surface. For a moment there was nothing to see; then he became aware of a faint crackling sound. At the base of the protruding ice, a white substance seemed to be growing out of the water, like a thin coat of new ice over the old. As Dow watched, the film climbed slowly upwards, the crackling sound faint but constant.

‘It is our friend nicre once again,' Fidel explained. ‘The organisms do not multiply in cold water as they do in warm, but even in cold water they exist in their multitudes. And though we don't know why, they climb upon any ice they encounter – and as they climb, they take minute amounts of water with them, which in turn freezes upon the existing ice. The amounts are miniscule, organism by organism, but look what happens …'

Now the white film was rising above the tip of the block, a delicate latticework of new ice, like a frost. Only by fractions of an inch maybe, but undoubtedly the block of ice was growing taller.

‘Here in the warmth of the cabin the process will not continue long. The original piece of ice is itself already melting. But in the far north, where the water is at freezing point, and where the air is even colder, the process can continue indefinitely. Hence, when ice forms at sea, it forms not as a sheet as it would on a freshwater pond. No, because of nicre, the ice climbs and climbs upon itself. In time, immense spires rise. But watch now …'

In the jar, the scaffolding of new ice was perhaps half an inch tall, and growing thicker. Then suddenly the entire chunk of ice overbalanced and rolled in the water, and the little tower of frost was plunged beneath the surface. A new face of the block was exposed – and immediately the faint crackling resumed, and a film of fresh ice, white and fragile, began to rise.

‘Do you see now why we call it the Unquiet Ice?' asked Fidel. ‘It is because the far north is a wilderness of great bergs that grow and grow – to thousands of feet in height – until they become top heavy and roll in cataclysmic collapses, only to begin growing all over again. And that sound you can barely hear, that crackling? In the ice regions of the northern sea it is a constant thunder.'

‘But there is worse yet, New Islander,' came a voice. It was Nell, speaking from her corner, her pen laid flat. ‘In the far
far
north,' she said, her gaze unfocused and yet almost rapt, as if in contemplation of some distant vision, ‘there is no space left for the bergs even to topple, and so they pile up against each other, and grow to the very limits nature permits. Over countless years there has formed thus a great jagged rampart that rears miles high and encircles the pole entirely, blocking all further progress north. The Ice Wall, it is named. No ship has ever passed beyond it, or beheld the pole.'

The pole, thought Dow, staring at her; the mythical top of the world, the axis upon which the globe turned …

‘No,' cautioned Fidel gravely, ‘though many have died in years gone by, in ill-considered attempts to find a way through. And I say that as someone who has seen the Wall with my own eyes, as you have not, Nell.'

Her faraway gaze went cold, and returned to the room. ‘Truly, Commander, I have only read of the Wall, and never seen it. And I heed your warning of its perils.' She smiled thinly. ‘But I take heart, also, for do we not have Mr Amber here on board, who has been summoned by an Ice Albatross no less – and who the Sea Lord's own scapegoat commends to us. The ship's poet, too, has been singing his praises. We are on a fated voyage, it seems. Still, will everyone feel so fortunate when the first fingers and toes are lost to frostbite, I wonder?' She shrugged. ‘But forgive my interruption, Commander. You have not yet told our guest of nicre's fourth and final property.'

‘No, indeed.' Fidel turned again to Dow. ‘Nicre, as you can now appreciate, is of fundamental importance. It defines much of our world, and sets the limits to where we can sail with safety or surety. But nicre possesses one last property – it destroys iron. Indeed, it attacks iron with a vehemence quite unparalleled by any rust or decay.' He touched the metal tripod on which the first jar stood. ‘Were I to place this iron stand into seawater, it would be eaten away to nothing within a day. Take note of the
Chloe
in that regard
.
There is much iron on board, but none of it is in direct contact with the sea, and the outer hull must be kept completely free of it, even to the smallest nail.'

Dow blinked in bemusement. In all his time aboard the
Chloe,
and in the months before that, sailing across the Claw in Nathaniel's little fishing boat, the
Maelstrom
, he'd never noticed this fact.

‘No ship of iron will ever sail the seas, that much we know for certain.' Fidel snuffed out the flame under the first jar. ‘But it is the Unquiet Ice that concerns us at present. And you in particular, Dow, for you see—' But here he halted, for the doors of the Great Cabin were thrown open with a bang. ‘Ah, gentlemen. Thank you for coming. Be seated, please.'

Four lieutenants had arrived – Diego among them, Dow immediately saw. And they in turn paused to stare warily, noting Dow's presence.

‘Sit, sit,' Fidel instructed, going to the head of the long table. ‘You too, Mr Amber. This involves you as well.'

The lieutenants, still with doubtful glances at Dow, positioned themselves up and down the table. Dow himself, cautious, took a chair at the lowest end, furthest from Fidel. Nell, meanwhile, had leant back from her book to watch proceedings. As scapegoat she was entitled to attend any meeting she chose, and yet Dow wondered – did his own presence have anything to do with hers? Her last speech had displayed a new and particular hostility towards him, mocking not his ignorance, as was usual, but rather his growing reputation among the crew
.
And yet why should
that
bother her so?

Fidel cleared his throat. ‘To the matter then. I've called you four here because you are the four most junior lieutenants on board – and I've included Mr Amber for reasons I will explain in a moment.'

Dow glanced to Diego in surprise. He hadn't realised until then just how junior Diego was, to be among the lowest four of all in rank.

‘As you know,' Fidel continued, ‘we are bent upon a voyage to the north, in search of the lost fleet of the Lord Designate. We must venture into the Unquiet Ice, a perilous region for any ship, and even more so for one the great size of the
Chloe.
We may well come across many a narrow crevice or passage that must be investigated, and yet into which the
Chloe
cannot hope to sail. In such circumstances we will launch boats.